Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Author Kathy Reichs delights North Shore Audience

Last night’s atrocious Auckland
weather failed to put a damper on the North Shore Libraries Foundation event
for Kathy Reichs, which was held in the Auditorium at Westlake Boys High
School. Around 150 people battled the driving wind and rain to hear
mega-bestselling author Reichs in conversation with crime reviewer and book
blogger extraordinaire Graham Beattie. They weren’t disappointed. The two fell
easily in to their stride, traversing wide terrain, including how closely
Reichs’s life matched that of her fictional equivalent, Temperance Brennan; the differences between the book treatment of Tempe compared
to how she appears in the high-rating TV series ‘Bones’; and what it was like
to co-author new teen fiction series Viralswith her litigator son,
Brendan.

In town to promote her new novel Bones of the Lost,
which Reichs had spoken to TV3’s Campbell
Live programme earlier in the day, the audience were happily engaged and
entertained, enjoying numerous anecdotes about the author’s life and work.

And
the America’s Cup race also got a mention, with Reichs relating a story about
her “fantastic publicist” (Jennifer Balle) managing to get she and husband Paul
in to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron last Friday, to watch that day’s
racing in San Fran and how afterwards, she’d Tweeted about possibly buying one of the
yachts for sale at Westhaven. She didn’t.

The audience were clearly delighted and long lines formed after the show to buy copies of her books and have them signed by the author.

The event
was attended by Westlake Girls High Principal Roz Mexted, staff and students
from the Westlake schools community, North Shore Libraries staff, Foundation
members and the reading public, and proudly supported by the North Shore
Libraries Foundation, Random House New Zealand and The Westlake Girls Parents
Forum. A percentage of ticket sales will be
donated to The Westlake Girls Parents Forum Student Welfare Fund.